RESTLESS forms of living light Fleet are ye as fleetest galley Was the sun himself your sire ? Or of the shade of golden flowers, As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe, And yet, since on this hapless earth years, the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array, Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy-twine. NO LIFE VAIN. Show the dull woe which no compas- LET me not deem that I was made sion warms, in vain, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. [Passages from The Rime of the Ancient | Sure I had drunken in my dreams, Mariner.] THE SHIP BECALMED. THE fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea, Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; Water, water everywhere, And still my body drank. I moved, and could not feel my limbs: I was so light- almost I thought that I had died in sleep, THE VOICES OF THE ANGELS. AROUND, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning! And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the heavens be mute. It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook THE ANCIENT MARINER REFRESHED In the leafy month of June, BY SLEEP AND RAIN. O SLEEP! it is a gentle thing, To Mary queen the praise be given! The silly buckets on the deck, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. PENANCE OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, AND HIS REVERENT TEACHING. FORTHWITH this frame of mine was wrenched With a woful agony, I dreamt that they were filled with Which forced me to begin my tale: That had so long remained, dew; And when I awoke it rained. And then it left me free. Since then at an uncertain hour, My lips were wet, my throat was That agony returns: cold, My garments all were dank. And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns. I pass, like night, from land to land; What loud uproar bursts from that The wedding-guests are there: [From Christabel.] BROKEN Friendships. ALAS! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And to be wroth with one we love, So lonely 'twas, that God himself And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent moon as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, My genial spirits fail; It were a vain endeavor, Though I should gaze forever On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element! O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous lady, joy that ne'er was given, Save to the pure, and in their purest heur, Life, and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower Joy, lady, is the spirit and the power, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower, A new earth and new heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light. There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine. And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth, But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, |